Writing quotes

Writing

30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Writing quotes (page 159 of 1537)

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Writing

"Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer's boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary."

Writing Children Eye

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Writing

"Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called "silent poetry," and poetry "speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other."

Writing Art Law

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Writing

"Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories and criticism."

Writing Father Self Reliance

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Ram Dass Spiritual Teacher, Author

Writing

"A Tibetan Lama said to me, "The best place to stand, Ram Dass, is halfway between hope and hopelessness." So I can write a scenario for the 21st century in either direction. One is that it all goes to hell and that it's truly the dark age."

Writing Age Dark

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Tennessee Williams Playwright

Writing

"I'm only really alive when I'm writing."

Writing Alive Posthumous

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Tennessee Williams Playwright

Writing

"It's to a writer's advantage to contain within himself elements of each sex, or any sex. It's to his advantage because it makes him able to write from the female point of view as well as the male. In some cases, of course, you will find some homosexual writers who can only write from a f - - -'s point of view. But I don't regard myself as a f - - -! Some people may. Also audiences wanted escapism. They don't like too much protest or criticism of their way of life."

Writing Views Sex

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Teresa of Avila Saint, Mystic, Writer

Writing

"I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget one thing while I am saying another."

Writing Hands Wish

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book."

Writing Book Hero

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write. The regard of the public is not to be kept but by tribute, and the remembrance of past service will quickly languish unless successive performances frequently revive it. Yet in every new attempt there is new hazard, and there are few who do not, at some unlucky time, injure their own characters by attempting to enlarge them."

Writing Character Successful

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"A man will turn over half a library to make one book."

Men Writing Book

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements."

Writing Expression Perseverance

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence."

Writing Silence Abuse

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers; nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation."

Writing Common Unexpected

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased."

Thinking Writing Trouble

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements."

Writing Effort Perseverance

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous."

Men Writing Good Man

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new material of their own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied."

Writing Book Two

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"The chief glory of every people arises from its authors."

People Writing Glory

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free."

Writing Suffering Lovers

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules."

Writing Feelings Judging

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